


Hurt

by Servena



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Blood and Injury, Cold Weather, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injured!Gene, M/M, Medical Procedures, Nausea, Pain, Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servena/pseuds/Servena
Summary: At first he feels no pain at all, it’s more like being punched in the shoulder.





	Hurt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rab5298](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rab5298/gifts).



> For rab5298 since her comments keep motivating me to finish my drafts. :)

At first he feels no pain at all, it’s more like being punched in the shoulder, and he stumbles and grabs hold of a nearby tree to keep from falling face first into the thin blanket of snow. His ears are ringing from the impact of the shell and he strains to hear the tell-tale whistle of a next, but there is only the low pop of machine-gun fire coming from the line in front of him.

He leans against the tree for a moment to catch his breath, and he knows that that’s a pretty bad idea because that tree will explode like a splinter bomb if it gets hit and he really should get himself moving and into a foxhole, but he just needs a moment.

And then he feels it. There’s a warmth spreading over his left shoulder, and that can’t be right because he can’t even remember the last time he felt warm, so he reaches for it and his fingers come away wet and bloody.

His head spins at the sight. “Shit”, he mumbles, barely audible even to his own ears. For a moment he considers yelling for a medic, but Spina is on the other end of the line and he really doesn’t want to drag him out here where a single shell hit could kill them both, the only two medics Easy Company has.

Instead he takes a deep breath and puts his hand on the wound again to check it. It’s bleeding, but it isn’t coming in spurts, so no major artery was hit. There’s an entry wound at the back of his shoulder and no exit wound, which is both good and bad, good because he won’t lose as much blood, bad because someone will have to dig whatever hit him out of him, and he can barely reach, let alone see anything.

He can feel the adrenaline drain out of him, and with it gone the pain makes a sudden and forceful appearance. He grits his teeth and groans, trying to keep it quiet. His initial inspection tells him it’s probably nothing more than a flesh wound, but he knows that shoulder wounds hurt like hell because of all the nerves leading into the arm. He really wishes that he didn’t have to confirm this knowledge by personal experience.

He squints to look up into the grey winter sky. Any moment the Germans will resume their shelling, and if he doesn’t want to drag anyone else out of their foxhole he’ll have to move. He grabs hold of his left arm with his right hand to keep it as steady as possible and wills himself to walk. The machine-gun fire has died down and the only thing he hears is the snow crunching beneath his boots and his own heavy breathing.

He tries to remember the arrangement of their foxholes. He moves between them a lot, so he usually knows where everyone is at, which is really helpful if someone yells for him because he can recognize the voice of nearly every man in their company in his sleep. He’s at the eastern flank, so the closest men would be Smokey and Gordon and Babe Heffron.

Later he can’t quite explain to himself why he passes the first foxhole, keeping his head down and hoping that they don’t look at him too closely because there aren’t a lot of things that can freak out a soldier as much as an injured medic, and keeps going until he can see Heffron’s red hair from behind, but he does.

“Hey Heffron, I need a hand here”, he mumbles as he slides down into the foxhole. It was dug for two, but since Private Julian died, Heffron has been occupying it alone. Later he will quote that as the reason he sought him out, but he will know that that’s a lie.

Heffron abandons his lookout over the line to turn to face him. “Gene! Sure thing, what – holy shit!” he yelps as soon as he catches sight of the blood seeping through his jacket.

“Don’t freak out, it ain’t that bad”, he says as he slips off his medic bag and starts to look for a bandage, which would be a lot easier if he could use both hands.

“Looks pretty bad to me!” Babe moves to get up. “I’m getting Spina.”

“No, wait!” He tries to reach out to him, but instead moans in pain when he moves his left arm without thinking.

Babe freezes and looks at him with wide eyes. “Shit, sorry”, he says despite having nothing to be sorry for.

“No two medics in one hole. Bad idea”, he manages to get out through gritted teeth.

Babe’s face is a single display of worry. “Gene, you need help.”

“Yeah”. He nods. “You’re gonna help me.”

Worry quickly morphs into panic. “I don’t know shit about this!”

“I’ll tell you what to do.” He can tell that Babe is starting to freak out, so he fixes his most serious look on him, the one he usually uses on men that are hindering his rescue attempts by thrashing around. “Babe, I’d do it myself but I can’t reach. You’ll do just fine, it’s really simple. I’ll talk you through it.”

He watches Babe take a deep breath and settle back into the foxhole. “Okay. Okay… What do I do?”

“First, help me get out of this.”

Getting out of the jacket is a struggle, getting out of the shirt is simply impossible, so he tells Babe to just cut it open. Babe freezes as his fingers first come in contact with the blood, but just as Gene begins to wonder whether he picked the wrong person for this, Babe pulls himself together. “Okay, what now?”

“You gotta get whatever hit me out of there. Everything, if possible, or the wound might get infected. I got some tweezers in my bag…”

He motions to reach for it, but Babe takes it from him. “I’ve got it, you just stay put.”

That’s alright with Gene, because he really doesn’t want to move any more than absolutely necessary. His shoulder has started to throb and the pain and maybe a bit of shock is starting to make him feel nauseous.

Babe has to have caught up on it, because he fixes him another worried look and says:  “Jesus, Gene, you look even paler than usual, and I didn’t think that was possible.” Gene chuckles quietly at that. “You need something against the pain?”

He shakes his head. “Only got two left. Gotta save ‘em.” At Babe’s look he adds: “And I might not be able to tell you what to do on morphine.”

Babe hesitates, but then he nods. A moment later he says “Got them” and holds up the tweezers.

“Okay. Just take your time, see what you can find.”

They shuffle around until Babe is kneeling behind him and has enough light to get to work. Gene shivers as the cold fingers touch his bare skin. He didn’t think it was possible to feel colder than he has in the last few days, but now he’s halfway out of his jacket and finds out he was wrong.

Babe seems to catch up on his shaking since he inches closer until Gene can feel his body pressing against his back. “There’s a lot of blood, I can’t see shit”, he complains.

“You just gotta feel around.”

“Okay. Okay…” Babe leans forward until Gene imagines he can feel his warm breath on his skin, and gets to work.

Gene tries to keep it together, he really does, but he can’t really help the noises of pain escaping his mouth. He presses his right hand to his lips to keep himself from alerting the guys in the foxholes nearby.

“Shit, Gene, I’m sorry”, Babe says, and moves to back off, but he shakes his head.

“Can’t be helped”, he gasps, “just get it over with.”

Gene is pretty sure that it takes no longer than a few minutes, but they are the longest minutes of his life. In the end he just squeezes his eyes shut, dig the fingers of his right hand into his leg and wishes it to be over.

“I got something”, Babe finally says, and the pain dies down to an acceptable amount. Gene breathes a sigh of relief and squints at the tweezers Babe is holding in front of his face.

“Looks like a piece of a shell, doesn’t it?” Babe says.

“Better’n a piece of tree”, Gene mutters. “That everything?”

“Not sure. Gonna check.”

“Merde”, Gene groans.

It takes another minute for Babe to be sure that, yes, that was indeed everything. Gene doesn’t complain because that was exactly what he had told Babe to do, but he also feels like he could throw up just because of the amount of pain he’s in.

“Give me a moment”, he says when Babe looks at him expectantly, awaiting his next instruction.

Babe gives him a worried look. “Yeah. Of course. You sure you don’t want that morphine?”

It takes every inch of Gene’s self-control to shake his head.

“Alright”, he says when he no longer feels like he might lose his breakfast into the snow, “now the sulfa. Be generous.”

He can hear Babe ripping the package open. “Do I have to warn you that that’s gonna hurt?”

“I know that it’s gonna hu-”, Gene begins to say, but then he hisses at the burning feeling of the sulfa in the fresh wound. “Ow. Some bedside manners you got.”

“I just wanted to get it over with”, Babe says and tosses the empty package. “Now what?”

“Now you gotta stitch it up.”

Babe leans into his field of view so that he can get a clear look at his upset face. “Are you serious?”

“I’ve seen you sew up your uniform so don’t pretend you’ve never held a needle before.”

Babe throws his hands into the air. “That is not the same thing!”

“It really is. Doesn’t have to be pretty, just has to get the job done.”

“You just want an ugly scar to impress all the pretty ladies at home”, Babe mumbles as he starts to search for a needle.

Gene just scoffs at that. The thought alone is ridiculous, but he can’t exactly say that, so he doesn’t say anything.

The scar probably isn’t going to be pretty if Babe’s shaky hands are any indication (he needs three attempts to run the thread through the needle), but he really doesn’t care. He just wants to get this over with, and frankly, the people at the make-shift aid station in Bastogne probably wouldn’t do a much better job.

The stitching hurts less than he expected, certainly less than the ordeal before, or maybe he’s just starting to get numb from the cold. He blows warm breath into his hand and tries not to shiver too much to not make Babe’s job even harder.

“This certainly won’t win any awards”, Babe says after he has tied up the thread, “but it does the job. And I didn’t even throw up.” He packs up the medical supplies again, for which Gene is grateful because he doesn’t think he could do it even if he wanted to. Instead he works his way back into his jacket, clenching his teeth to keep himself from wincing. He’ll have to wash the dried blood out later, but right now he doesn’t care. He pulls the zipper up as far as it can go and tries to stop shaking because it increases the throbbing in his shoulder.

Babe’s concerned face appears in front of him. “How are you feeling?”

“Cold”, he says with chattering teeth.

“Come here, Jesus, you look half frozen.” Babe digs up the army blanket he has managed to get his hands on and throws it over him, then sits down at his other side so Gene can lean against him without jostling his wound.

“Feel half frozen, too”, he mumbles while Babe pulls and drags at the edges of the blanket until they’re both covered as much as possible. It doesn’t do much, but the heat of Babe’s body next to him feels magnificent and Gene leans closer to put his head against his shoulder.

“How’s the pain?” Babe asks.

“Bearable.”

They’re silent for a moment. Then Babe says: “Gene? How the hell you gonna fix people up with only one hand?”

“I’ll figure something out.” Truthfully, he isn’t sure what that’s supposed to be, but he can’t come off the line and leave Spina to deal with all of this.

Babe turns to look at him. “I could be your assistant! Since I figure I did pretty well right now.”

“You weren’t half bad”, he admits. “Gotta work on all the bitching, though.”

Babe huffs indignantly. “You weren’t exactly quiet either.”

“Yeah, but I had an excuse.” They both smile.

“I’m glad you’re okay”, Babe says. “You scared the living daylight out of me, never do that again!”

“I’ll try not to. And Babe?” He glances up at him. “Thanks.”

Babe gives him one of those wide grins he’s come to love lately. “You’re welcome.”


End file.
